A report in the Mining Weekly, based on a story in Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola, stated that under Angola’s new Diamond Commercialisation Policy, “diamond mining companies operating in the country will, in future, be able to sell up to 60% of their production in the free market”.  

Previously,  companies were obliged to sell the rough they produced  to “preferred buyers” listed  by the State-owned Empresa Nacional de Comercialização de Diamantes de Angola (National Diamond Commercialisation Company of  Angola), or as it is popularly called, Sodiam.

The report also said that Angolan weekly magazine Expansão had said in an article that, under the preferred buyers system, “the country’s diamond miners had lost gross revenues estimated at $5-billion”.

This, the report explained, was a result of the preferred buyers’ ability to “demand a discount of 30% in relation to market prices”.

The new Diamond policy, introduced by Presidential decree on July 27, “seeks to facilitate regular sales contracts of one year to three years’ duration, as well as sales to diamond polishing companies operating in Angola,” the report stated.

Not only would these contracts be “properly authorised” by the government, but the sale of diamonds “with special characteristics” has also been provided for. 

Moreover, under the new policy, rough diamonds recovered by artisanal miners, organised in small cooperatives, “would be exclusively bought” by Sodiam at “market prices and the official list of prices, approved by government”, the report quoted.

Mining Weekly also reported that, on another note, the Sociedade Mineira de Catoca (the Catoca Mining Company), Angola’s largest diamond producer, and the fourth biggest in the world, will, over the next five years, “focus on improving its operational efficiency to increase its productivity and its fiscal contributions”.